The Aviation Historian Magazine Issue 21 Zurück Ausgabe

“The Crossroads of Death” is an eyecatching name to bestow on an aerobatic display manoeuvre, but it might also be seen as tempting fate. And, indeed, it led to a grim outcome when performed in 1961 by four North American F-86 Sabres of the Golden Crown, the Imperial Iranian Air Force’s formation team. Despite the accident, though, the Golden Crown was an impressive and effective symbol of Iran’s air power for more than two decades, from 1958 to 1979. Its story is told in full in this 21st quarterly issue of The Aviation Historian. Elsewhere in the issue we look at the RAF aircraft projects put forward in the aftermath of Duncan Sandys’ “infamous” 1957 Defence White Paper; the USAAF’s most intensive and effective MiG-hunt of the Vietnam War; and at a forgotten Italian high-altitude monoplane of 1940, the AQV. We also re-examine the friendly-fire shootdown of a Consolidated B-24 Liberator by Spitfires off the British coast in 1942; Indonesia’s indigenous aircraft designs of the 1950s and 1960s; an RAF tour of Africa by Vickers Victorias in 1934; and Silver City’s aerial cross-Channel car-ferry operation using Bristol Freighters. All this, and much more, is illustrated with high-quality archive photographs and bespoke artwork.